1st E.DSO Stakeholders and Innovation Council

“Edging into the Future of Networks”

Integrating electricity distribution tomorrow’s technologies and needs in today’s forward planning and DSOs grids strategy design

30 November 2018, Brussels

A future vision for electricity networks and the overall energy system: this was the topic of E.DSO’s first Stakeholders and Innovation Council hosted today at the Bibliothèque Solvay in Brussels.

The Council is E.DSO’s new platform to bring in outside perspectives, thereby helping to design the evolution of electric power distribution evolving models and approaches. Discussions and studies are providing advice and aspiration for E.DSO and nurture its members’ forward-looking strategies.
E.DSO’s first Stakeholders Council invited some fifty participants among leading experts from the fields of digitalisation and smart grids, innovators and policy makers as well as experts in customer behaviour and trends.

The four subjects discussed at the first meeting are: Futurability, Grid Edge Transformation, Resilience and Customers’ Perspectives. These topics were deliberated among Council members in the morning and presented to a wider audience in the afternoon for further exchange with additional qualified stakeholders from the industry and the EU institutions.

Livio Gallo, Head of Enel Group’s Global Infrastructure and Networks, and Vice Chair of E.DSO, opened the afternoon round table in his function as Council Chairperson, highlighting the importance of knowledge exchange and technology benchmarking for future readiness.

Introducing the debate on Futurability, speakers stressed the evolving ownership relation between people and things. The sharing economy, whilst providing many opportunities, also poses challenges to different sectors (electricity, infrastructure, mobility and finance). At the same time, we witness a fundamental shift towards electrification of transport, heating, cooling and industry as well as data intelligence and digital customers. It was highlighted that synergies between energy sectors and industries will replace competition among energy vectors, which in turn requires sustainable cross-sector regulation and innovative financial mechanisms.

Discussions on Grid Edge Transformation called upon DSOs to be not only market facilitators but market catalysers. The digitalisation of the grid will benefit customers, regardless their level of active participation in the power system. At the same time, “platformisation” of electricity transmission – and above all – distribution is seen as a key to current and future market and regulatory and governance aspects.

Concerning Resilience, E.DSO’s Council members highlighted that the power system must be ‘resilient by design’. Worldwide experiences, including those from more exposed countries, should be used to build up best practices for preventive action plans and guidelines. Moreover, resilience plans should not only be limited to extreme weather conditions but also other adverse events, e.g. cybersecurity, mega events.

Focusing on Evolutionary Customers, speakers underlined that DSOs need to continue being seen as the reliable partners, enabling the widest variety of customer lifestyles and maximising the active role of customers in the energy transition. This also entails sustainability promotion and innovation through information. The focus should be on simplicity. Furthermore, energy poverty is a serious problem that should be addressed through partnerships with communities.

Christian Buchel, Director for Customers, Markets, Territories and Europe of Enedis of France and Chairman of E.DSO highlighted the importance of cooperation to enable the energy transition: “European DSOs should lead the way, together with other relevant stakeholders”.

Anna Colucci, Head of Retail markets, Coal and Oil Unit at European Commission DG ENERGY, gave the closing speech of the E.DSO Council concluding that DSOs are key actors to concretise the Clean Energy Package and to lead to a smart energy transition. 

Members of EDSO’s Stakeholder and Innovation Council

Ronnie Belmans: Chairman of the board of directors of ELIA. CEO of Energyville, joint venture research centre for sustainable energy supply of cities with VITO, IMEC and KULeuven. Executive Director of Global Smart Grid Federation.

Martin Hans Henning: Chairman of the Fraunhofer Energy Alliance, Director of the Fraunhofer In-stitute for Solar Energy Systems ISE in Freiburg, Germany and Professor of “Solar Energy Systems” at the Institute of Sustainable Systems Engineering in the Faculty of Engineering, University of Freiburg.

Jorge Vasconcelos: Chairman of NEWES, New Energy Solutions and first chairman of the Portuguese Energy Regulatory Authority, ERSE. Founder and first chairman of the Council of European Energy Regulators, was founder and member of the Executive Committee of the Florence School of Regulation.

Dan Delurey: Founder of the US Association for Demand Response & Smart Grid. Accredited Dele-gation Head for the COP Series of UN Meetings on Climate Change. Helped develop much of the US policy regarding demand response and smart grid. Co‐author of the blog “Update on DR, DER, and grid Developments”.

Philip Lewis: Expert in customer centric behavioral, competitive and smart issues. Former member of the WEF Global Agenda Council on the Future of Electricity. Co‐founder and board member of the Smart Energy Demand Coalition. Named among top 40 most influential people in Smart Grid 2014. Author of the World Energy Retail Market Rankings.

Guido Bortoni: Former president of ARERA, the Italian Regulatory Authority for gas, electricity, wa-ter and wastes, Guido Bortoni was also Member of the Board of Regulators of the Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators (ACER) since 2015.

Patrice Geoffron: Professor of Economics at the Université Paris Dauphine. Director of the Centre of Geopolitics of Energy and Raw Materials (CGEMP). His main area of research is related to the dynamics of network industries with recent developments centred on power smart grids/

Joisa Saraiva: Professor of economics, Director of the Center for Regulation and Infrastructure, Fundação Getulio Vargas. Formerly: Commissioner for the National Electricity Regulator in Brazil, ANEEL. Member of the Global Future Council on Energy of the World.

EDSO Representatives: Christian Buchel (Enedis), Livio Gallo (Enel Global Infrastructure and Net-works), Armando Martinez (Iberdrola Distribucion), Joachim Schneider (innogy), Franz Strempfl (Energienetze Steiermark), João Torres (EDP Distribuição), Jan Peters (Enexis), Roberto Zangrandi (EDSO for Smart Grids).